This is what the Mayor of London spends his time on…

Yesterday, London faced its biggest public transport crisis since the London bombings. As I said yesterday, Boris Johnson’s response to this – to do little except cancel the congestion charge – was pretty aggravating.

We don’t know when precisely the article was written but it must have been in the last two days. Dave Hill has posted that he spoke to the Telegraph during the day yesterday, and was assured that it “had been delivered”, which suggests it was written either on Sunday evening or Monday morning.

Why couldn’t it have been written earlier, you say? Well, I’d like to assume that Boris wouldn’t be so crass as to spend yesterday writing a column for the Telegraph, rather than doing his job, but since the column begins with the words “Let us suppose you are so brave or mad as to get in your car today, and head off through the snowy wastes.” It’s hard to conclude that he did the writing before the snow started coming down.

Also, what’s with that thing about driving anyway? The whole opening of the Johnson article is an extended parable about the dangers of driving in the snow. This from the only man in the country who encouraged people to drive yesterday, by cancelling the Congestion charge. WTF?

To return to the point: Boris Johnson is the mayor of London. This weekend, while London was trying to prepare for and deal with it’s biggest weather crisis for decades, he was busy writing a column for the Telegraph. Leadership?

Maybe even “Boriz-veztia” might think that this is newsworthy.

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12 Responses to “This is what the Mayor of London spends his time on…”

I detested the congestion charge which was just a way of punishing motorists and i like the way Boris does not do that Nazi ~” He never sleeps ” thing which Brown and Thatcher had in common.
I hope he is letting people get on with their jobs a lesson Labour could learn much from

Well, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the capacity or desire to stay awake set out as a key feature of National Socialism, but there’s always a first time for everything.

The extraordinary nature of the first comment has the effect of making the reader take the eye off the main post, Hopi, which is full of appropriate detail linking pretty incontrevertible fact to conclusions about subtle abuse of high office.

Mind you, I have hesitated to say as much, because agreeing with someone might be seen as a key indicator a tendency to believe everything I’m told, and therefore make me a Nazi sympathiser or worse.

Paul, Newmania’s comment was odd too, because apart from anything else, Hitler wa a notoriously late riser. You could rarely get him before noon , and that’s one of the reasons the German reaction to D-day was so poor.

Anway, less about hitler, more about Boris Johnson… whose £250k contract withthe Telegraph is worth about a hudred grand more to him than being Mayor of London. It’s beginning to show, I think.

Tsk tsk Hopi you should know better than to question me . Looking up the legend of ” The Fuhrer Never Sleeps ” I can across these attributes of his semi deified persona
1 having amazing capacity for hard work. “I never sleep” (Hitler).
2 controlling the weather, cloudless sky was said to be “Führer weather”. …(obviously snow is Boris weather )

I have always been rather worried about that sort of thing and I prefer the fact that Boris has a succesful career I do not have to pay for . I believe Herr Livingstone was a teacher for a week and otherwise scrounged from the state . By the way are we for or against Livingstone this week?

Nothing on the unemployed British workers you wish to abolish Britain is reponsible for Hopi. At least Boris is on your side there . I `m not

Errr. Iain, Since Boris himself said that he spent Monday morning from Dawn “liasing” from home with the Fire Service, Police and TfL, then would definitely impact his work as Mayor if he was typing up his Telegraph article at the same time, no?

Apart from that, I didn’t realise that mayor of London was a standard 9-5 job…

Points 1 and 3 – The Mayor of London is not responsible for individual services, but he is responsible for co-ordinating London wide responses. He is supposed to plan, prepare and lead the response. to minimise impact – while in fact, as far as I can tell, he did nothing.

Let me put this another way. Aside from cancelling the Congestion charge, can you think of a single thing the Mayor of London did by oooh, Monday lunchtime?

Plus, all money goes to feeding our cat, or providing sustenance to those who do. So really, if you don't help, you're evil

Who are you anyway?

My name is Hopi Sen. Really. I worked for the Labour party for seven years and now I don't. You get the benefit of my immense wisdom and knowledge (hem hem). I write about politics as a loyal Labour supporter.